New Film Documents Liverpool’s Punk Scene

Punk’s not dead. It’s just being turned into a documentary. The unpublished diaries of broadcaster, Roger Hill – one of Liverpool’s seminal punk rock heroes – are to form the backbone of a new documentary film focused on Punk’s stranglehold in the city.

In 2012, director, Matthew Fox was granted access to the diaries – an estimated two million, handwritten words – spanning more than forty years of Hill’s life. The result? Liverpool-based Thinking Film’s new look back in anger (and, looking at those old snaps of Hill, a certain degree of Lycra, too).

“There are scenes of bonfires on waste ground, of children swinging from ropes tied to streetlamps, of telephone boxes that give back more change than you’ve put in, of Punk in full flood, of nature, and politics…” they tease.

Hill’s presented PMS on BBC Radio Merseyside since 1982, making it the longest-running alternative music show on UK local radio. And it’s as contradictory and celebratory as ever.

Punk Snow will focus on the years 1979 to 1981, the backdrop the iconic Mathew Street club, Eric’s (is it open or closed these days?), and the Liverpool Punk scene. “What happened during these first two years was that I realised that I was meant to be here, in Liverpool, and that these were the toughest of times, and that only the fight would make it survivable, and that the fight would be through music and style and working together” says Hill.

Anybody who would like to contribute to the film or volunteer during its production can contact punksnow@thinkingfilm.co.uk